Posted on 04/10/2014 4:40:59 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/apr44/10apr44.htm#
Red Army liberates Odessa
Monday, April 10, 1944 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Soviet forces capture Odessa. The German and Romanian defenders have evacuated about 24,000 men, many of them wounded, as well as 55,000 tons of supplies. In the Crimea, Soviet forces of the 4th Ukrainian Front continue to attack the defensive positions of the German 17th Army. Armyansk is captured. Meanwhile, the forces of 2nd Ukrainian Front (Konev) cross the Siret River and capture Radauti and Suceava.
In Burma... British General Slim, commanding 14th Army, prepares a counteroffensive. British troops surrounded at Imphal and Kohima continue to be supplied by air. The 33rd Corps (Stopford) is tasked with breaking through Japanese lines and relieving Kohima.
In the North Atlantic... German submarines U-515 and U-68 are sunk by elements of US Task Group 21.12 which includes the carrier Guadalcanal.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/10.htm
April 10th, 1944 (MONDAY)
BELGIUM AND FRANCE: The Eighth Air Force flies Mission 295: 729 bombers and 496 fighters are dispatched to hit aviation industry targets and airfields in Belgium and France; 3 bombers and 2 fighters are lost.
- 123 B-17s bomb the aviation industry and airfield at Evere, 52 hit Melsbroek Airfield at Brussels, 39 hit aviation industry targets at Brussels, and 20 hit Bergen op Zoom; 1 B-17 is lost.
- In Belgium, 62 B-17s hit Maldagem Airfield, 60 hit Schaffen Airfield at Diest and 42 hit Juzaine Airfield at Florennes; in France, 21 B-17s hit Courcelles and 21 hit Beaumont sur Oise Airfield; they claim 0-2-1 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1 B-17 is lost.
- In Belgium, 151 B-24s hit the airfield and aviation industry at Bourges; in France, 28 hit Bricy Airfield Orleans, 21 hit Romarantin Airfield and 15 hit V-weapon sites at Marquise/Mimoyecques; they claim 6-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1 B-24 is lost.
Escort is provided by 51 P-38s, 295 P-47s and 150 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-51s: P-38s have no claims or losses; P-47s claim 12-0-7 Luftwaffe aircraft, 1 P-47 is lost; P-51s claim 40-0-16 aircraft, 1 P-51 is lost.
258 Ninth Air Force B-26 Marauders and 41 A-20s, including 12 aircraft dropping Window, attack coastal batteries at Le Harve/Le Grand Hameau, France, and military installation nearby. In Belgium during the afternoon 267 B-26s and A-20s bomb the marshalling yard, airfield, coastal defences, and NOBALL targets at Charleroi/Montignies, Namur, Coxyde, Nieuport and other points on the northern coast of Western Europe. 47 P-47s dive-bomb the airfield at Evreux, France. (Jack McKillop)
NORWAY: The Royal Navy’s X-craft, the midget four-man submarines which disabled the TIRPITZ battleship last September, scored another devastating success today. And this time there was no loss of life. X-24, commanded by Lieutenant M H Shean, managed to get in and out of the heavily-protected Bergen harbour without being detected.
Shean guided his midget submarine underneath the 7,500-ton merchant ship BARENFELS, placed his charges and escaped, undetected from the harbour before they went off. The explosion sank the BARENFELS but did not harm a dock which was also targeted. The puzzled Germans have assumed that the attack was sabotage.
U.S.S.R.: Russian forces take Odessa. The 2nd Ukrainian Front crosses the River Siret in Romania.
ITALY: Twelfth Air Force A-20s hit an ammunition dump at Gallicano near Lazio; B-25s bomb the Orvieto marshalling yard and 2 bridges; B-26s hit Poggibonsi and Cecina railroad bridges and tracks, and viaducts at Bucine and west of Arezzo; fighter-bombers operating over wide areas of central Italy and in the battle zones hit railroad bridges, railroad cars, motor transport, barracks, and troop concentrations with good effect. (Jack McKillop)
INDIA: British troops at Imphal and Kohima will be supplied by air and begin offensive operations.
BURMA: Air Commando Combat Mission N0.42 3:00 Flight Time Hailakandi, Assam to Banmauk, Burma. Bombed Japanese supply dumps. (Chuck Baisden)
About 100 Tenth Air Force fighter-bombers and a few B-25s pound numerous targets, including an encampment southwest of Mogaung, positions near Kazu, a railroad and truck park at Myitkyina, a supply area south of Myitkyina, and a bivouac area and supplies at Kamaing; some of the fighter-bombers carry out support of ground forces northeast of Kamaing; 40+ fighter-bombers and B-25s over the Katha area hit a bridge at Thityabin, troops and supplies at Shwegu, gun positions and troops south of Mawlu, and targets of opportunity including a fuel dump; and 9 B-24s bomb the railroad station and jetty area at Moulmein while 4 others mine the mouth of the Tavoy River.
Ten Fourteenth Air Force P-40s pound roads north and south of Wanling. (Jack McKillop)
FRENCH INDOCHINA: 3 Fourteenth Air Force B-25s damage 2 bridges at Phu Dien Chau and destroy several buildings and some railroad track. (Jack McKillop)
JAPAN: 3 Eleventh Air Force B-24s fly armed reconnaissance over Matsuwa and Onnekotan Islands in the Kurile Islands. (Jack McKillop)
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Thirteenth Air Force aircraft attack New Britain Island. 22 B-25s bomb the Ratawul supply area and 40+ fighter-bombers hit the runway at Tobera, both strikes causing considerable damage; night harassment of the Rabaul area continues. (Jack McKillop)
CAROLINE ISLANDS: Seventh Air Force B-24s, staging through Eniwetok Atoll, bomb Truk Atoll (1 hits Ponape Island) while B-25s, based on Abemama Island, strike Ponape. (Jack McKillop)
MARSHALL ISLANDS: Seventh Air Force B-25s, flying a shuttle mission between Tarawa and Majuro Atolls, pound Maloelap and Jaluit Atolls. (Jack McKillop)
NEW GUINEA: About 60 Fifth Air Force B-24s, teaming with US destroyers offshore, bombard the Hansa Bay area, concentrating on AA positions guarding airfields. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) informally approve Operation MATTERHORN, the plan for the bombing of Japan by B-29 Superfortresses based in the Calcutta, India, area and staging through advanced fields in the Chengtu, China, area, which had been approved in principle by President Franklin D Roosevelt on 10 November 43. The operational vehicle is to be the 58th Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy) (4 bombardment groups) of the XX Bomber Command, soon to be assigned to the newly activated Twentieth Air Force, operating under General Henry H “Hap” Arnold as executive agent for the JCS. (Jack McKillop)
US Marine Corps, V Amphibious Corps is split to form HQ, V Amphibious Corps and Marine Admin Command, V Amphibious Corps. (Gordon Rottman)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Jim Verdolini notes in his diary: (Jim is 17-years-old and on his first ship. Some of the information was inserted post-war after conversations with his old Skipper, ComOfficer, Engineering Officer and shipmates).
Dawn April 10, 1944.
Our planes caught another sub, on the surface. The lookout crew on the deck of the sub, never had a chance. Our planes came in from the dark side.
I can just imagine the lookouts, watching the coming sunrise, and getting ready to slip beneath the waters, to safety. Our planes strafed and dropped depth charges. It went down immediately with all hands below deck, gone, to the same fate, they had given to merchant sailors, they had sunk.
Our planes circled and detected much debris, oil, and three bobbing heads.
They dropped rubber boats to the three survivors. But when we arrived, very shortly thereafter, only two men were in the water, and one young man was holding his buddie, with one hand, and holding on to the raft with the other. The other man was dead, and the other was badly wounded.
His sub was U-68. We’re doing pretty good. Hope no U boat gets us. He survived because he was on lookout, and was able to go over the side.
Seems we are in the middle of a real U boat passageway to the convoy lanes. I felt funny about the sailors who went down with their sub. At what level does the boat crush? Are the crew drowned, or trapped ? As they taught us in Boot Camp, “Kill, or be killed.” Still feel funny though.
On the other hand, how many Allied lives have we saved. We found out that between the two U boats we sank on this cruise, they had sunk 55 Allied ships, and a total tonnage of 250,000 tons. How many of our men died?
( A footnote here: We had fished a German torpedo out of the water. I did not know about it. But a year later while in the Pacific, I received a piece of the torpedo with the inscription. “ U 68 sunk 10th April 1944”. I guess that Boot Camp slogan, “Kill or be killed” made sense. )
The German submarine U-68 is sunk off Madeira by depth charges and rockets from FM-2 Wildcats and TBM Avengers of Composite Squadron 58 (VC-58) in the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60). (Jack McKillop)
It is interesting to read your WW2 post from the year of my birth. Many could learn some of today’s problems from the past, but while America will not see another civil war with guns, they may well see a country falling to socialist dogma, promoted by the MSM and the educational systems of today.
The USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60) will make the news again with regards to another U-boat, on or about June 5th, 1944.
Much Thanks for the continued history posts :-)
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
A number of "elegant zazous" - the French equivalent of zoot-suiters - have been picked up in Paris bars and cafes and sent to German labor camps, the French press reports.
It's very interesting that this pop-culture subgroup of "eccentrically dressed youths" could still be found at "ultra-modern bars" in Nazi-occupied Paris.
"Max Josef Metzger was a Catholic priest, and a pacifist.
A World War I German Army chaplain, he founded and headed the Peace Alliance of German Catholics.
During the war he called for a non-Nazi government for Germany.
Arrested and condemned for high treason by the vehemently pro-Nazi People's Court, he was executed in April 1944."
"On April 13, 1944, one of the final deportations of Jews from the Drancy, France, transit camp left for Auschwitz.
Fifteen hundred prisoners arrived in Auschwitz on April 16, including the Brin family (pictured).
All but 388 perished in the gas chambers."
Soviet propaganda writer David Zaslavsky is bad mouthing my man Hanson. In “Russia at War,” Alexander Werth identified Zaslavsky as the Kremlin’s “poison pen,” who was only trotted out to write nasty hit pieces. He must have been a truly miserable man with few friends.
And if he thought Baldwin was bad, I wonder what he would have written about de Seversky.
This Soviet attack on Hanson Baldwin reminds me of Democrats talking about Republicans -- makes you wonder where they learned their trade-craft.
And naturally, the New York Times prints the entire attack with no response in defense of their own writer!
Shows you whose side they're on.
Projection, a key characteristic of leftists. This reminds me of an article today (2014-today) in which a college student claims she was terrified and fearful because pro-life demonstrators were holding signs in a designated free-speech zone. Leftists are driven to insane violence by the existence of other points of view; therefore, they assume everyone is.
....not so fast, komrad.
Well, the “correct” kind of Czechs anyway.
APRIL 10.....XMTN 10...MUSICAL 1-1-1-1
ANN:
Thank you kindly sir, she said!.. Hello Everybody, this is Ann of Radio Tokyo with our regular programme for our Friends in Australia and the South Pacific. It's pretty music tonight, guaranteed to take your mind off the present, and to make you forget for a while ‘the haunting spectres of the might-have-been'!...yes, it's a quotation, but I don't know who wrote it, do You?..think it over, and here's some music to oil the wheels..Franz Lehar's 'Gypsy Love'.. played as a Concert Waltz by Nat Shilkret and Orchestra....
BUS:
'GYPSY LOVE'...CONCERT WALTZ..(V.J.B. 95-A)
ANN:
Like that? well be good and we'll have an even better one directly, in the meanwhile here's an old smoothy for you, Savino's 'A study in Blue'....please to listening!.
BUS:
'A STUDY IN BLUE'..(V.J.B.-90-B)
ANN:
This is Radio Tokyo's special programme for listeners in Australia and my Boneheads in the South Pacific. Right now I'm lulling their senses before I creep up and annihilate them with my nail file..but don't tell anybody!.. Now here's the next waltz I promised you, Victor Herbert's 'Kiss Me Again'..you heard me!.
BUS:
'KISS ME AGAIN'..(V. 9146-A)
ANN:
And now here's your News Announcer to read you the News from the American Home Front...Come on in...
TED READS A.H.F. NEWS.......
Thank you..thank you.....And so back to our music. This is your favorite little enemy Ann calling you from Radio Tokyo and this time we have two of the movements from Eric Coates 'London Suite'..First of all the Tarantelle 'Covent Garden'..
ANN:
Pretty music isn't it?..and now let's listen to the 'Meditation'.. 'Westminister'..from the same London Suite and then it'll be time for your News Highlights and the Zero Hour..Coming Over!...
NEWS....
ETC....
When lefties scream the loudest, you know you're on target.
Funny on how we were all offended by Zaslavsky’s hit piece today. Somewhere, I hope Hanson Baldwin is smiling. And somewhere else, David Zaslavsky has a warm feeling...
Colorado tanker: "When lefties scream the loudest, you know you're on target. "
hennkster: "And somewhere else, David Zaslavsky has a warm feeling..."
Somewhere I saw a list of the occasions for peace-feelers between Hitler & Stalin -- in the early days they came from Stalin and were brushed aside by Hitler, but later in the war, contacts came from Hitler's people and were brushed aside by Stalin.
Fear of Stalin making a separate peace (as Russia did in the First World War) kept President Roosevelt slavishly devoted to supporting the Soviets.
Here we see the Soviets' displeasure with the fact that at least some American press doesn't slavishly follow the Washington party line.
Of course today, Putin doesn't have such problems...
;-)
Good observations.
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